By Bradley Brashears, PCAC Associate Director
July 27, 2022
Good morning! I’m Bradley Brashears, Associate Director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC).
I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to MTA leadership, senior management, agency presidents, and all the incredible staffers I’ve been able to work and collaborate with over the course of my nine years at the PCAC, and of course to everyone who keeps the system moving every day. I’ve greatly enjoyed working with all of you both past and present. If you ever find yourself in sunny San Diego, please reach out!
The MTA and its operating agencies, while still reeling from the impacts of the pandemic, is in an era of monumental change. With the strong, talented, and determined leadership of Janno Lieber, Cathy Rinaldi, Rich Davey, Craig Cipriano, Jamie Torres-Springer and so many others, the job will get done and MTA riders will greatly benefit from your hard work.
And you’ve already been hard at work detailing plans to make the system more accessible, resilient, and equitable. It was such great news that the MTA settled lawsuits and agreed to make 95% of stations accessible by 2055, and as we saw on Monday, that 52% of the station’s Capital Program resources is dedicated to system accessibility – right in time for the 32nd Anniversary of ADA. It was also good to see the inclusion of specific resiliency projects, including at Dyckman Street, that were highlighted with the Resiliency Working Group’s efforts and last week’s storms. And of course, I cannot forget about fare equity. You have done a lot with the current fare reduction pilots, but I urge you to expand the Freedom Ticket concept to all city stations. As our beloved NYCTRC Chair Andrew Albert says, “riders will have a choice, be it subway, bus or commuter rail all within one zone and at an affordable rate.” It will be your most valuable tool yet to get riders back on board, improving equity, and getting drivers out of cars and onto transit.
I also want to give a shout out to another MTA employee who is leaving, Sarah Meyer. Sarah, it has been a pleasure working with you and you have done so much to improve passenger communications and I wish you all the best.
Thank you and thank you everyone!